OpenSea will maintain its position as the largest NFT marketplace and will continue to require creator fees for any preexisting collections that are hosted on the site. Creators of NFT collections currently trading on OpenSea will be allowed to continue collecting royalties on transactions, in contrast to many exchanges that have made royalties voluntary.
This shift is the result of the exchange’s announcement on Saturday that it would only collect royalties on new collections that included code that blacklisted the sale of the NFTs on other markets that don’t enforce royalty. Many people in the NFT community are ecstatic about OpenSea’s decision. Farokh Samad, an NFT influencer, tweeted, “Some light in the darkness.”
https://twitter.com/farokh/status/1590468361607348225?s=20&t=LOs6Jaxw_kIcqqR-JaxrRw
The timing of OpenSea’s move is interesting since top NFT collections are increasingly being sold on exchanges that do not charge trading fees in order to maximise earnings. Revenue for OpenSea, which comes from a 2.5% fee on trades, has suffered as a result. Even weekly NFT volumes have dropped by more than 90% from their first-quarter high.
Accordingly, OpenSea’s decision to forego short-term income by continuing to enable artists to receive royalties is garnering enormous marketplace goodwill. Listing assets on OpenSea with enforced creator fees requires new collections to incorporate code that blacklists any exchanges that don’t support royalties.
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